A journal by artist and designer John Coulthart.
Design by Boris Bilinsky (1927). The restored version of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) was released in the UK this week by Eureka Video and my head is still spinning from having finally seen the missing scenes I’ve read about for years. There’s little I can say about the film itself that hasn’t already been said … Continue reading “Metropolis!”
Jean Michel as Fantômas. Ernst Moerman’s Belgian short from 1937 is available for viewing at Ubuweb and is described on its title card as “Un film Surrealiste”. One might equally describe it as “un film amateur” since it’s very much in the home movie mould as was much of the independent cinema of this time. … Continue reading “Monsieur Fantômas by Ernst Moerman”
Continuing the delve into back issues of Jugend magazine, the German fin de siècle periodical of “art and life”, this post covers the year 1899. The earlier years of the magazine are replete with a variety of elegant and often bizarre graphics, as well as some classic examples of Art Nouveau graphic design. 1899 is … Continue reading “Jugend, 1899”
In which photographer Mikel Marton works variations on Wilhelm von Gloeden’s nude studies of the boys of Taormina, Sicily. “Classic” has a double meaning here since Von Gloeden’s photographs are now considered classic works of early homoerotica (Oscar Wilde was an enthusiast) as well as borrowing their props and poses from Classical antiquity. The very … Continue reading “Ode to the Classics”
The Ticket that Exploded. Cover design by Thomi Wroblowski for a John Calder edition, 1985. William S Burroughs: A Man Within is a feature-length documentary by Yony Leyser, and is, so the makers say, the first posthumous documentary about the always essential writer. Howard Brookner’s 1983 film, Burroughs, is probably definitive where the biography is … Continue reading “William S Burroughs: A Man Within”